Talk:Comparison of color models in computer graphics

Steve11235 explains his rationale for removing RHaworth’s proposed deletion

RHaworth put a {{prod}} at the top of the page, with the criterion: essay and fork of existing articles, and an edit summary “Proposing article for deletion per WP:PROD”. Also, RHaworth moved the article to Comparison of color models in computer graphics, which move was reverted.

Steve11235 responded as follows:

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I realize that I need to complete this article in an expeditious manner, so it can be fully evaluated. However, marking it for deletion is not furthering that goal.

I understand the purpose of references in many types of articles. However, references for their own sake is poor style. The real question is whether any statements require validation. See my comments regarding the purpose of this article in that regard.

I appreciate constructive feedback. However, puerile, ad hominem slights do not belong here.

The reason for this article is two-fold:

• To bring together facts regarding three specific color models that are documented in other articles
  • The existing articles, which I referred to in the "See also" section, contain numerous external references
• To address these color models in a pragmatic vice abstract manner
• To include information and insight on the topic that is not available in the existing articles

As a Web application developer (as opposed to a Web graphics designer), I have read the various articles on color several times each over a several year period. I am not criticizing the articles in any way; however, they take such a theoretical approach that I never fully understood the color models, in particular, how they relate to one another. In the past, I didn't need an in-depth understanding to "get the job done", but I am now in a mentoring role, and I have to be able to explain color concepts generally and the RGB, HSV, and HSL models specifically.

I think the real issue here is the purpose of an encyclopedia. Should the articles be entirely technical and accessible only to those already trained in the subject matter? I think not. My article is certainly !!not!! an essay. It is pedagogical, but I hasten to note that the word encyclopedia shares the same Greek root word, which relates to the training of children. In addition, much of the information is derivative from what is documented in other articles. Again, that is not a defect, but a virtue, in that it makes the information accessible to those of us who lack formal training in this area (and, who frankly have no interest in transforms of cubic to bi-cone spaces). The beauty of Wikipedia, in my mind, is that is has room enough for a range of article targeting a range of audiences. Ultimately, it is up to the editorial staff to make that decision, but I ask to have at least a fair hearing on the matter before a final judgement is rendered.

At far as changing the title, I chose that title for is specificity and to allow people like me to easily find the article through a search and divine its purpose. The new title is vague, lacks critical keywords, and is misleading, in that the article is not a comparison.

Steve11235 (talk) 01:08, 12 October 2011 (UTC)

I have completed the work I intend to do on this page, although I will return to it and fix any discrepancies I find. I don't believe I have done anything that qualifies as "original research"; virtually everything I described is derived from other Wikipedia articles. Having said that, I do believe the article would benefit from the restrained addition of references to the core articles. Thanks in advance to anyone who makes an effort along those lines!

Steve11235 (talk) 01:13, 19 October 2011 (UTC)

Jacobolus's suggestions

I’m not going to muck with this too much, since I wrote most of the content at HSL and HSV, and I’m not trying to discourage other attempts to explain the ideas... but you cite no sources, and much of your material is somewhere between speculative and wrong. For example, what does “the eye perceives color in a way that can be represented by placing the pure colors on a circle” mean? HSL and HSV “circles” are not anywhere close to the way the eye perceives color, and no reliable source about the science of human color vision will support such a statement. What does it mean that “for display screen purposes, red is used as hue zero”? What is a “display screen purpose”? The material about “tints” and “shades” is vague and confusing. The use of undefined terms like “intensity”, “brightness”, “mask”, “complement”, etc. is confusing, and some of your usages contradict common scientific meanings of those terms. All of the material in the sections about choosing a model is basically original research, as it reflects your personal analysis and reasoning about the use of these spaces. For what it’s worth, I personally disagree with many of your assertions here, and I suspect many color experts also would. In particular, statements like “the advantage of HSV is that each of its attributes corresponds directly to the basic color concepts” are basically false, as far as human color vision is concerned. Some of your terms, for example “luminescence”, are, as far as I can tell, your own inventions — that is, “luminescence” typically means something entirely different. Much of the explanation is confused, and uses terminology in self-contradictory ways. My recommendation is that if this article doesn’t pick up some external reliable sources (and also try to define what it means by the terminology it uses, and tighten up its use of language generally) in the not-too-distant future it should just be deleted. Some external website that doesn’t claim to contain neutral encyclopedic material based on reliable sources would be a better host for this kind of essay. –jacobolus (t) 02:18, 19 October 2011 (UTC)

I'll look into your comments in more depth as I have a chance. However, I'm a bit surprised at some of them. Of course "color" is based on perception, and you act as if you have never seen a color circle before. Red is always hue zero in additive-based systems. Do I really need to find a reference for that? My description of "luminescence" is strictly limited to HSL, and my description is accurate in terms of how HSL works. I can't imagine why you would challenge that.

Frankly, I don't even understand the purpose of your raising these issues. I understand that I am communicating in a different way than you do, but that does not invalidate my writing. In addition, I found a lot of information in other Wikipedia articles. If you don't understand my descriptions of shades and tints, look at the Color Theory article.

But I think the real problem is that you don't like a non-"expert" contributing. Your perspective (as expressed in your article) is valuable, but there is plenty of need for other perspectives. If your goal is to limit Wikipedia to a certain perspective, then I think you are missing the point of Wikipedia.

As far a citing sources, I cited your article. I don't see how added references to your article or the others to every single statement adds to the validity of the content.

I will come back, if I can make the time, and answer your "objections" one by one. But the more I look at them, the more I question whether there is any point. Here's my challenge for you: You need to check your own attitude. Why are you being so negative? Is it because I made genuinely inaccurate statements or "conducted original research"? I very much doubt it. I don't see much objectivity in your comments. If you can't be objective, then I suggest you keep your comments to yourself. Otherwise, you are simply muddying the waters and hindering the purpose of Wikipedia.

BTW, I showed this article another software engineer, and he found it very helpful. That's why I wrote it.

Steve11235 (talk) 04:08, 21 October 2011 (UTC)

Now that I'm worked up, let me address some of your issue:

• "much of your material is speculative and wrong" I disagree with you. I think you are wrong. But all either of us has done is express an empty opinion. Not objective, not helpful.
• "For example, what does “the eye perceives color in a way that can be represented by placing the pure colors on a circle” mean?" What do you mean, what do I mean? I am trying to convey a very complex subject in a single sentence. What I said is obviously true, since everyone uses color circles. Again, I question your objectivity.
• "HSL and HSV “circles” are not anywhere close to the way the eye perceives color, and no reliable source about the science of human color vision will support such a statement." Who said anything about an HSL or HSV circle? You don't even make sense. And again, everyone uses color circles, so your statement is wrong.
• "What does it mean that “for display screen purposes, red is used as hue zero”?" Have you ever seen hue zero mean anything other than red when dealing with additive colors? Displays use additive (RGB) colors. This is a simple statement of fact. What is your point?
• "The material about “tints” and “shades” is vague and confusing." That's a valid opinion on your part. Others who have read that section found it clear and informative.
• "some of your usages contradict common scientific meanings of those terms" These terms have different meanings, depending on context and who's using them. From reading the other technical articles, I think your statement is false. At least provide substantiation, such as a reference to a well-recognized glossary. For my part, I made good effort to clearly define what I meant by the terms.
• "All of the material in the sections about choosing a model is basically original research, as it reflects your personal analysis and reasoning about the use of these spaces." Get real. I made clear that there is no objective reason for using a particular model except that a tool or standard uses it. That is NOT "original research", and your remark lacks intellectual honesty, much less objectivity.
• "I personally disagree with many of your assertions here, and I suspect many color experts also would. In particular, statements like “the advantage of HSV is that each of its attributes corresponds directly to the basic color concepts” are basically false, as far as human color vision is concerned." First, calling in unspecified experts is disingenuous in any sort of objective discussion. Your assertions that HSV saturation and value don't correspond to the concepts of tint and shade is patently wrong, as any simple test can demonstrate. What does "human color vision" have to do with anything in this context? I don't think YOU understand these concepts as well as you claim.
• "Some of your terms, for example “luminescence”, are, as far as I can tell, your own inventions — that is, “luminescence” typically means something entirely different." In terms of HSL, your statement is patently wrong. Follow the few links I did provide. Again, I question your understanding of the topic.
• "Much of the explanation is confused, and uses terminology in self-contradictory ways." That's simply an empty accusation; it is devoid of objectivity or substantiation.
• "My recommendation is that if this article doesn’t pick up some external reliable sources (and also try to define what it means by the terminology it uses, and tighten up its use of language generally) in the not-too-distant future it should just be deleted. Some external website that doesn’t claim to contain neutral encyclopedic material based on reliable sources would be a better host for this kind of essay." Based on your previous observations, I don't think you are qualified to make this assessment.

After reviewing your comments in more depth, I am frankly quite irritated that you are wasting my time. Your writing indicates that you lack key qualifications as an editor:

• Objectivity: You state opinions as facts and question factual statements without providing any basis for doing so. This is a tell-tale sign of lack of formal training and experience in the academic arena.
• Factual knowledge: You deny or question well-known statements of fact. I don't doubt you have some formal training in this area, but your comments reveal some gaping holes in your understanding. You should not be presenting yourself as an expert.
• Helpfulness: Clearly, your goal is simply to have articles removed. Your comments are critical and not constructive. The goal of an editor should be to improve, not to eliminate. Even as a contributor, you are sorely lacking in this area.

The hard truth is that I wrote this article because the information needed for a layman to understand this topic is scattered over at least a dozen articles. The quality of writing in those articles is uneven, with much of the discussion taking place at an extremely high technical level. I did do original research in understanding this topic. I read through those articles several times each until I understood enough to pull it together. What is currently available is not useful to laymen. I spent a good amount of time improving that situation. The fact you want to undo my efforts perplexes me. And please don't "muck with this too much". You don't understand enough of the perspective or the content to improve it. Just leave it alone!

Steve11235 (talk) 04:49, 21 October 2011 (UTC)

Up to now, the discussion on this page has, in my opinion, not met reasonable standards for Wikipedia. The following are my suggestions for further discussion of this article.

• Anyone editing, criticizing, or, especially, wanting to mark this page for deletion should briefly list their qualifications.

For example, I am a software engineer with a B.S. in Physics. I work with colors when designing user interfaces. Clearly, I am not an expert in Color Theory. I drew the content from this article mostly from other Wikipedia articles, and also from conversations with graphics experts and other non-verifiable sources. I have no special role with Wikipedia. I feel that I can add an article, but I am hesitant to make substantial changes to articles submitted by others, and I have no right to mark an article for deletion.

• Statements of opinion should be kept to a minimum; derogatory remarks are inappropriate.
• Prefer constructive feedback to criticism.
• Critical remarks should be objective, factual, and specific. Quoting the offending content is a good practice.
• Claims of "essay" and "original research" should be limited and carefully substantiated. From the limited sample of comments so far, these terms are being thrown out as buzz words.
  • Webster's defines essay as "3a an analytic or interpretative literary composition usually dealing with its subject from a limited or personal point of view"
  • "Essay" should indicate a work that does not deal with facts but with personal opinions.
  • From a scientific perspective, original research indicates factual conclusions that have yet to be verified by the community.
  • Statements of well-known or easily verified fact do not constitute original research.
• Only those with special roles as Wikipedia staff should be marking the article for deletion or renaming it. Of the first two comments, one marked the article for deletion and renamed it; the other threatened to mark it for deletion.

I am realizing that there are constituencies with the "Color Community" that look at color in very different ways, depending on the medium (paint pigment, display screen, printing). I have encountered primary colors of red, blue, yellow (paint pigment), red, green, blue (display screens), and cyan, yellow, magenta (printing). Even the distribution of colors around the color circle seems to vary between paint pigment on one hand and display and printing on the other. I have also noticed other, fundamental ways of approaching color. I am not enough of an expert to write an article unifying these topics, but I am aware of them. My take, so far, is that members of one constituency are taking exception when I bring concepts in from another constituency. All I can say it this: just because you don't recognize the approach does not make it factually wrong, much less original research.

I am loathe to obtain a definitive text on color theory to add references to every point in the article. Frankly, I think some of the more technical articles need to be reviewed and expanded through such a procedure, but that is beyond my training. However, if periodic threats to delete this article can only be stopped by my doing so, I will put in the effort. Many software engineers need just enough color theory to be able to use the HSV and HSL models in color tools. The existing articles simply do not accomplish that, as I know from my personal experience and from my discussions with others. Now that CSS3 is adding HSL capabilities, the HSL model will become even more important to layman.

I come to Wikipedia first to find reliable information that is direct and comprehensible. I want to improve Wikipedia in this one, small area. Please help me achieve this goal.

Steve11235 (talk) 03:56, 23 October 2011 (UTC)

I have found additional Wikipedia articles on additive and subtractive colors. I will update the Color Basics section, based on these articles, and add references to them. One of the "problems" with color wheels is that they have different appearances based on whether additive or subtractive colors are used. While the existing statements are almost completely correct, some small edits and a few references will greatly clarify that section.

Steve11235 (talk) 04:44, 23 October 2011 (UTC)

Hi Steve. I think you’re reading malice into my (and perhaps user:RHaworth’s) comments when there really isn’t any there. My suggestion to you would be to go do some reading. Unfortunately, Wikipedia’s color-related articles do a rather poor job of explaining basic color science, so I’d recommend turning to books or other online resources first. Bruce MacEvoy’s site is one of the best online resources about the subject I know, and Maureen Stone’s SIGGRAPH notes from 2001 aren’t bad, and refer to lots of other sources. Some good recent books include Hunt’s The Reproduction of Colour, Berns’s Billmeyer and Saltzman's Principles of Color Technology, and Reinhard et al.’s Color Imaging: Fundamentals and Applications, or if you’re specifically interested in different color representations, perhaps Rolf Kuehni’s Color Space and Its Divisions. (Actually, if you’re interested in HSL and HSV, the current article HSL and HSV refers to dozens of sources; I’d be happy to send you copies of any paywalled papers there.) The main problem I have is that in your current writing, you’ve used words which have precise technical meanings sloppily or incorrectly, and made claims which are incorrect, and you haven’t cited any reliable sources for anything. See WP:OR, WP:CITE. I’m not trying to attack you, and as myself a programmer who did plenty of physics and math coursework, I’m sure if we could sit down over a coffee it would be easy to sort out in short order. I think it’s great when people take an interest in learning about color, since in the general public (and it seems especially in the computer graphics and web design communities) it is so poorly understood. –jacobolus (t) 19:05, 23 October 2011 (UTC)

The best short description of HSL/HSV comes from Charles Poynton’s Color FAQ. “HSB and HLS were developed to specify numerical Hue, Saturation and Brightness (or Hue, Lightness and Saturation) in an age when users had to specify colours numerically. The usual formulations of HSB and HLS are flawed with respect to the properties of colour vision. Now that users can choose colours visually, or choose colours related to other media (such as PANTONE), or use perceptually-based systems like L*u*v* and L*a*b*, HSB and HLS should be abandoned.” –jacobolus (t) 19:15, 23 October 2011 (UTC)

Here’s another good summary, from Reinhard et al.: “In reality, these spaces [HSL, HSV, HSI] should carry along an asterisk or quotation marks to differentiate them from spaces that are more closely tied to the actual color appearance attributes. They can be considered crude approximations of more visually precise color spaces... Despite the suggestive names given to the axes, the hue, saturation, and lightness do not correlate well with the perceptual attributes of hue, saturation, and lightness as defined in Chapter 11... In summary, the HSL-related color spaces discussed in the following sections could be used for selecting device-dependent colors, for instance in drawing programs. Nonetheless, it should be noted that the meaning of the axes does not correlate well with perceptual attributes of the same names, and care must be taken not to confuse these spaces with more advanced color appearance spaces.” –jacobolus (t) 02:33, 24 October 2011 (UTC)

And here’s Maureen Stone: “You can also create your own palettes based on the principles above. Unfortunately, most color selection tools, even those whose labels suggest they model graphic design principles (such as HSV or HLS), provide poor control over value. To use them effectively requires either a discerning eye or a clear understanding of the relationship between RGB and luminance (or both).” –jacobolus (t) 02:39, 24 October 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for the response. I think a dialogue is more productive than whatever was going on before.

Still, I think you are missing my intention in writing this article. My goal is didactic exposition, yours is technical discourse. I think Wikipedia is big enough for both.

As far as doing more reading, I intend to, but not on the subject of color models. I have learned more than I really wanted to about the topic. The fact of the matter is that "color" is the human brain's interpretation of combinations of a narrow band of the electromagnetic spectrum, and it defies scientific definition apart from a color model that, de facto, makes presuppositions about what "color" is. "Hue" is even more nebulous, as painters still use Newton's RYB color model. You can argue that RYB is dated and inaccurate, but the fact is that it is still relevant.

For many Wikipedia users, including myself, I care only to know the relationship between additive colors (as computer displays generate additive colors), RGB (as that is the core model used in the computer graphics milieu), and the HSV (I use The Gimp) and the HSL (CSS3 and other tools I don't typically use) color models that are used as abstractions over RGB. In general, I am interested in these things only because I am ultimately concerned with more the artistic concepts of color, such as schemes, and I have to understand the models to generate the schemes.

Having studied these topics, I decided to share what I learned with others, as I know from personal experience that the color models are a major impediment to working with color schemes. Someone once described the primary qualification of a Teacher as, "A person who can study a vast amount of information on a topic, distill it down, and make it comprehensible to the average person." You seem to take simplicity for ignorance.

"The main problem I have is that in your current writing, you’ve used words which have precise technical meanings sloppily or incorrectly, and made claims which are incorrect, and you haven’t cited any reliable sources for anything."

• Words that have precise technical meaning only in the context of a specific color model. For example, "saturation" has two precise, and very different meanings, in HSV and HSL. I have revised my article slightly to avoid using "reserved words", but Color Theory, in general, frequently contradicts itself. Using terms generically is not "sloppy", especially in didactic exposition.
• What claims are incorrect? If you make statements, substantiate them. Better, point out areas for improvement. Beyond that, you and I disagree on certain points. I think the reason is that you view color from the perspective of specific color models, while I am seeing a broader picture that takes in both the technical and artistic viewpoints. For example, "tone" as an attribute of color is described in Webster's, and artists use the term, both I don't see it anywhere in technical definitions.
• When you say "you haven’t cited any reliable sources for anything", that is patently false. I referenced the CSS2 and CSS3 standards long before you added that remark, and those are source that are clearly "reliable". Frankly, when you say things like that, it destroys your credibility. Furthermore, I have added a number of references to other articles that discuss specific topics in more depth. And, for the last time, this is a didactic exposition, not a technical discourse. There are far more than enough references for any informed person to verify anything I have said. This is not a thesis.

Finally, on a personal note, I am growing weary of your pompous attitude and your thinly veiled slights. I have responded, at length, to your posts, mostly because I don't want this article deleted. Going forward, I will summarily dismiss any further comments from you unless you follow the guidelines I suggested.

Steve11235 (talk) 16:02, 24 October 2011 (UTC)

First, throughout the word usage and sentence structure is imprecise, but here’s a list of specific problems:

1. There are multiple types of “primary colors” which might be used, but as a concept, the definition is fairly clear.
2. Your definition of hue is not the typical one (technical color terms are officially defined by the International Lighting Vocabulary of the CIE, and Wikipedia would do very well to stick to those definitions), which renders 2 or 3 paragraphs about color wheels, hues, etc. problematical. The very concept of “pure color” (which is not ever called “hue” by modern scientists or artists who are careful about their language) is of very limited applicability, and so was mostly abandoned 80 or 100 years ago.
3. Later on you have a couple instances of “Hue corresponds directly to the concept of hue in the Color Basics section”. This is not accurate. You have defined hue in the “color basics” section to mean “pure color” (namely, any RGB color where one of the components is 0 and one of the components is “full intensity”), whereas in HSL/HSV it is taken to refer to a whole dimension of the color space.
4. Your description of color wheels is written in general language but does not apply to many if not most color wheels.
5. Your description of complementary colors is only one of many (and not one of the better ones), but again you use general language.
6. The whole tints and shades section is extremely confusing. In particular the bit at the bottom about intensity of 1, 2, 3 is simply incorrect under any reasonable interpretation. I have no idea what you mean by “the HSL model will take this fact into account”.
7. What does Truecolor have to do with anything?
8. Which graphics tools “prefer” another mode? What’s the “as of 2011” all about?
9. Really, you think CSS is one of the 3 reasons to talk about the RGB color space?
10. The material about alpha transparency is irrelevant to the topic you've set up
11. The description of numerical representations and counts of bits is not sufficiently explained for your target non-technical audience, and is mostly irrelevant to the topic.
12. What is a “shade factor” or a “tint factor”? Do you have any source for those terms? Your primary in the section entitled “RGB” seems to be a radial slice through the HSV color space; I’m not sure why it doesn’t instead belong in the next section.
13. What does this mean: “The angular relationship between tones around the color circle is easily identified”? I can’t make any sense of this statement. What is the “angular relationship between tones around the color circle” and how would someone “easily identify” it?
14. A sentence here says “ Value corresponds directly to the concept of brightness in the Color Basics section”, but there is no “concept of brightness” defined in the “color basics” section. Do note that HSV’s “value” and HSL’s “lightness” are nothing at all like the human perception of lightness or brightness, two terms with well-defined technical meanings based on the properties of human vision.
15. “The advantage of HSV is that each of its attributes corresponds directly to the basic color concepts” – as explained by those experts I quoted a bit above, this is false.
16. The statement “For this reason, the CSS3 standard plans to support RGB and HSL but not HSV” is not supported by the provided link.
17. “luminescence” – I think you mean “lightness” here. Luminescence means something entirely different. In general though your use of “intensity”, “brightness”, “value”, “luminescence”, “lightness”, etc. is too loosely defined to let readers understand what you mean throughtout.
18. Several sentences are highly confusing. Here’s an example: “Saturation, or the lack of it, produces tones of the reference hue that converge on the zero-saturation shade of gray, which is determined by the luminescence.”
19. What does this mean, “Note that the physical nature of additive color prevents the scheme from working exactly except for hues halfway between the primary and secondary colors”? What is the “scheme” here, and what would it mean for it to “work”?

Cheers, jacobolus (t) 07:04, 25 October 2011 (UTC)

You itemized your concerns, so I will address them.

1. Statement of opinion
2. CIE is itself a color model, which is not in scope for this article. Your comments about "pure color" are opinion.
3. Non sequitur. At any rate, "hue" is a very vague concept. You insist that it has a precise definition, but only in the context of specific color models. If you want to make an issue, take it up in the article on "Hue".
4. Many, if not most, color wheels are based on RYB, which has no relevance to this article. Of course it is written in general language. You simply don't get it. This is a general article.
5. See the above.
6. I agree you are confused by the concepts of tint and shade. They come from the art side. As far as the total intensity, see the reference to CSS3 color. It explicitly states that HSL was chosen over HSV for this reason.
7. Truecolor is the standard used by modern computer displays. It is also referred to as 24-bit or 32-bit color. That is why RGB is ubiquitous in the computer display world.
8. MS Paint, and, I believe, Photoshop use HSL. As far as I know, only The Gimp uses HSV. Regardless, both are relevant, since the article should not constrain the reader to one model over the other. If there is another color model in wide use, it should be added. I made a statement of fact that is true as of the time of writing. In 2013, in may no longer be true. I am simply being precise.
9. Absolutely. CSS2 has huge bearing on computer graphics, as it controls the display of HTML. Do you disagree?
10. Wrong. It is essential to understanding why 4 octets of bytes were chosen. It is also essential to understanding the implementation of RGB, also referred to as RGBA. It is outside the scope of the article; that is why I glossed over it.
11. It is core to understanding why RGB uses 256 steps. Many people in the intended audience will understand. Those who don't can easily skip over it.
12. Obviously, the concepts "shade" and "tint" can be quantified. My intended audience wants to know the connection between these concepts and RGB. I bring out the obvious connection to "shade" and "tint" to HSV in, wait for it, the HSV section.
13. I'm sorry if you don't understand, but it seems to make perfect sense to others. One of my colleagues just walked in and expressed his assent with my statement.
14. Thank you for the note on "brightness". I edited that out everywhere else in response to your previous complaints about vague terms. It should read "intensity". I'll correct that. Your second statement is outside the scope of this article and, frankly, rather irrelevant.
15. You claim to have quoted "experts" and then say that my statement is false. What "experts"? I proceed to link each basic concept to an HSV attribute. How is that false? This is the sort of statement that destroys your credibility.
16. See section 4.2.4., as listed in the citation. In the specification, it describes the advantage of HSL over HSV as "There are several other color schemes possible. Some advantages of HSL are that it is symmetrical to lightness and darkness (which is not the case with HSV for example), and it is trivial to convert HSL to RGB." I worded the problem differently; the citation was simply to support the fact that W3C sees this as an advantage. I think the problem is that you don't have sufficient conceptual understanding to make the connection.
17. You are right. HSL stands for Hue, Saturation, Lightness. I'll correct the article. As for the definition, it has meaning only in the context of a color model.
18. I'm sorry if you are confused. Without providing citations, I think this is why many people don't like HSL. The concept of saturation is non-intuitive.
19. Look at the total intensity values in the example. They all converge as they approach neutral, but for intermediate tones, they do not have the same total intensity. What you are missing, in general, is that additive colors, by definition, are composed of three physical light sources. The total intensity is the sum of all three, as is obvious in RGB.

You caught an editing mistake and a mistake in fact. Thank you for those contributions. The article will be improved because of them. (See additional comment below.)

However, I can say that one minor and one significant contribution do not warrant the volume of comments. Your goals appear to be showing your intellectual superiority and that only your article need exist in Wikipedia. I don't question your intellect, but this is not an appropriate forum. Perhaps we should compare something objective, such as GRE scores? Of course, I'm being facetious. As far as wanting to shut others out from sharing their knowledge, that is contrary to the purpose of Wikipedia. If you don't stop, I will seek to report you to the editorial board.

Steve11235 (talk) 12:31, 25 October 2011 (UTC)

As far as 17, I realized that, in common use, lightness and luminance are used interchangeably. Furthermore, luminance is probably the better term, as it sounds more technical and evokes the thought that the term does not have a simple meaning. You keep saying I'm vague in the way I use terms; in reality, the terms are not well defined. You can claim a certain authority uses a term a certain way, but even that is not meaningful if that authority is not widely recognized. Again, your comments destroy your credibility, and they are totally counterproductive. Please reconsider the extent of your participation in Wikipedia. I am not saying stop; I am saying that you should consider scaling back what you say and certainly the level of authority you purport to have.

Okay. I’m not trying to pick a fight. You asked for specific problems, which is why I provided some. I’m going to stop commenting on this page now, since I have no real desire to face your continuing verbal abuse. Luminescence and luminance and lightness are all different things, and each one has a clear and relatively unambiguous technical meaning. The CIE is not just “a certain authority”, but is the official international organization coordinating standards related to color. I might come back and put some inline templates in the article, to be even more explicit. But beyond that, my recommendation remains: this type of essay is fine, but Wikipedia isn’t really the place for it, especially if it cites no sources and doesn’t concern itself with making technically accurate statements. –jacobolus (t) 19:31, 25 October 2011 (UTC)

Comment from Homestead367

This is one of the best articles on how RGB, HSV, and HSL work. It takes it down to a level everyone will understand without becoming overly simple. I think you are being overly critical when marking this article for deletion. I wish someone had taken the time to create this article when i was doing web development it make understanding how the 3 color types work. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Homestead367 (talk • contribs) 15:58, 25 October 2011 (UTC)

Thanks! Steve11235 (talk) 23:50, 25 October 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for chiming in, Homestead. This comment seems to be your first edit... just out of curiosity, how did you find this page? –jacobolus (t) 00:06, 26 October 2011 (UTC)

The poster is a colleague, a fellow software engineer. I asked him to review the article and make a comment. Steve11235 (talk) 02:15, 27 October 2011 (UTC)

Let's be civil

First, I regret my overreactions to the behavior of others. I am not contributing to reaching a resolution of the obvious problems surrounding this article.

Second, I am in contact with the Wikipedia help desk. They have provided some good input. I have several suggestions:

1. Let's be civil. I agree to address only objective issues and simply not react to behavior.
2. Let's stop making modifications without discussion. In particular, no more moving the page, setting the delete flag, or adding "Original Research" markers without consensus. That means, at this point, all three of us.
3. There is a real issue with forking. The solution is not to delete this article. The solution is to look at how the existing articles can be upgraded and merged.
   1. I originally wanted to add my material to existing articles, but the existing articles, as they stand, don't allow it. However, the new article contains new information and perspective that is both valid and relevant. We cannot simply say, "There's not room, sorry." I am committed to retaining this information in a viable fashion; deleting the article is not acceptable. I WILL delete the article as soon as we can find a more appropriate place for its contents.
   2. Suggestion: The article HSV and HSL covers two, distinct topics. This leads to the overall article being too long. Make two, separate articles. Discussion common to both should be moved to other articles to avoid perpetuating the forking issue.
   3. Suggestion: Some of the basic color articles need improvement. From my perspective, I see two challenges:
      1. Color is equally defined by artists and engineers. Both perspectives should be represented in articles.
      2. The concepts of additive and subtractive colors are core to understanding any color model. For instance, from everything I have read, hue has different definitions in additive and subtractive colors. RGB is direct implementation of additive color concepts. In computer graphics applications, HSV and HSL are abstractions that are mapped to RGB. Basic color articles need to take this distinction into account. In particular, the article on Hue is completely lacking.

Steve11235 (talk) 13:00, 27 October 2011 (UTC)